Speaking of the XR GT, I was just reading this in Wikipedia: "All of the original XR GTs were painted in the colour 'GT Gold', except for eight that were "Gallaher Silver" and another five that were "Russet Bronze, Sultan Maroon, Polar White, Avis White and Ivy Green". The non-gold GTs, while having the same specifications, are the rarest of the early Australian muscle cars." Are these non-gold colors available for the Falcon?
Speaking of the XR GT, I was just reading this in Wikipedia: "All of the original XR GTs were painted in the colour 'GT Gold', except for eight that were "Gallaher Silver" and another five that were "Russet Bronze, Sultan Maroon, Polar White, Avis White and Ivy Green". The non-gold GTs, while having the same specifications, are the rarest of the early Australian muscle cars." Are these non-gold colors available for the Falcon?
The Lotus Sunbeam has the works rallye body as a widebody option.
Had a lot of fun digging up the engine specs and suspension setup to replicate it in-game.
Mildly bothered the XR doesn't have dual exhausts, but '100% originality' (even though the vast majority of owners ditched the single exit for duals) and that it doesn't have the other colour options. And none of the Fords in game have the same colours so it'll be a pain to replicate it. But I want to make the 1967 Bathurst winner's livery, so I guess I'll have to make Ivy Green at least.
I was quite surprised by the M4 GTS, and I'm not even much of a BMW fan. Sure the base M4 is already in the game, but the GTS sounds better and has silly orange bits and a spoiler. I like that stuff. I can say the same about the Viper and that ridiculous rear wing, I love it.
Also, I didn't know what a Talbot Lotus Sunbeam was until this DLC. With the body upgrade I absolutely adore that thing.
To be honest, the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus is the car I enjoyed the most in this pack, tuned it to become more like a Group B rally car at 431hp and it just feels so good to drive (although it's a bit bouncy). The NSX was also quite fun as well.
I hate that the Hakosuka and Kenmeri skylines have crappy super ugly skinny sunken inside wheels
And yes, this little thing is quite fun I kept mine NA after finding it more than a handful with either the rally engine or force induction. NA seems to give it a nice balance. still in category D
Some other changes I've noticed that I'm not sure were documented here.
- Goliath Circuit A.I. Freeze Glitch has been fixed. Opponents will now provide you the proper race you were looking for.
- The Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor now costs $25,000 instead of $1,500.
- The GTA Spano is now the Spania GTA GTA Spano (try saying that five times fast).
I'm just putting the cars together with their guesses and trying to make sense of the clues.
Vehicle 1: Halloween is such a kooky time of year! I love the festive nature of this holiday.
- 1998 Nissan Silvia K's (kooky, kouki, I get it. Even though "kouki" is pronounced "koh-kee" not "koo-kee")
Vehicle 2: It may be crazy to hear this but, what comes around goes around.
- 1990 Mazda Savannah RX-7 (No idea how this clue gets you an RX-7, unless the word round is an oblique reference to a rotary engine.)
Vehicle 3: You never know until you try! The result might make for generations of cherished rivalries and competition.
- 1967 Ford Falcon XR GT (Ford vs. Holden rivalry. Not sure about the first part.)
Vehicle 4: If lives were gears this cat would be hitting 60 in less time than it takes to read this clue aloud.
- 2017 Acura NSX (nine speed transmission)
Vehicle 5: It takes class to inspire this kind of driving. Well, that and one helluva big wing!
- 2016 Dodge Viper ACR (not sure what "class" refers too, but it does have a big wing)
Vehicle 6: Street legal yes. Daily driver, probably not.
- 2016 BMW M4 GTS (clue could describe a hundred cars. The M4 GTS is one of them.)
Vehicle 7: Sometimes winning makes for strange bedfellows.
- 1979 Talbot Lotus Sunbeam (sure, why not?)
I must say, for a pack that likely involved the least amount of material effort in a few years from T10/PG, I am impressed. I definitely had tons of funs driving all these cars, and I can see a couple getting a star right next to their pic in my garage!
The Chrysler, touché, Talbot Sunbeam is not the most impressive car I could get excited about. Sure, the then-powerful Lotus 911 engine does its job, and stout handling makes it a hoot on those dirt trails... But the same's true for the Fiesta XR2, which only has half the power of this ChryslPeugeuLotus Frankenstein monster on tap. And the styling it's as British and beige as it could possibly be.
However, fit a more aggressive cam, an open exhaust, the proper Group 4 widebody and a laundry list of period correct go-fast goodies and it becomes a rally beast which forgoes crumpets to eat Stratoses and 131s with its tea. Which is why the Sunbeam is so fondly reminded amongst rally fans: against such fierce competition, it managed to nab a WRC Constructors title, a success which eventually motivated Peugeot to keep Talbot's racing department alive after acquiring the brand, giving the task of keep it competitive to a certain Jean Todt. Four years and an insane mid-engined 205 later, the team would become again World Champions, adding a Drivers Title to their palmares.
This is a Nissan S-series Silvia. If you pull the handbrake, it drifts around corners. How exciting.
Jokes aside, there is not much to be said about this car, which essentially performs the same way as its older sister. I was not a fan of the car's sharper aesthetics, but I must say that I can see why people were nagging so much to get the JDM version of the two-hundred-something SX in Forza: it looks pretty for its age.
The V2 Rocket Bunny bodykit is a very interesting addiction: slap some Rotiforms MLWs wrapped in chunky race tires in there, paint it in yellow, add a red and a blue stripe to the top, and you can pretend you're drifting in a more modern incarnation of the good ol' Datsun Sunny.
brapbrapbrapbrapbrapbrap
Okay, when it comes to RX-7s I am a bit biased: the FD is awesome, but the FC is the best incarnation of the rotary-engined coupè, period. So 80s! So mean-looking! And it even comes with wide fenders and a spoiler that screams "Wangan", how cool is that?
This boxy beast isn't the performance monster its younger sibling is, but it's a fantastic high-rpm cruiser, and I'm sure it can be made into a decent drift car or a highway missile. But why ruin such a good thing?
The XR Falcon GT is the car that really kickstarted Australia's love affairs with V8 engines, and their use in comically impractical situations, such as racing on the harrowingly tight downhill corners of Mount Panorama, or escaping from post-apocalyptic biker gangs and guzzoline barons.
While the idea of sticking a Mustang V8 in a chassis designed for inline-six engines and grocery-getting must've seemed crazy back in the day, the First of the V8 Interceptors dragged Holden and Chrysler Australian in the world of motor racing by their hair. By 1970, the once-competitive Austin Minis and Lotus Cortinas were relegated to eating the dust those Australian Muscle Cars lifted.
Handling-wise, it feels like a more primitive and cruder version of the XY GTHO already present in the game at launch... And come to think of it, that's exactly what it is.
Say hello to the latest (and unfortunately, last) generation of the American Club Racer. Which is, essentially, a Dodge Viper with added trackday panache.
Not that it makes all that much of a difference in a game as, hm, user-friendly as Horizon 3 is. "Oh, no, you're totally not taking this corner too fast, don't worry, buddy, everything's under control!", and just like that, the garish rear wing becomes a fashion accessory. Which is not to say, however, that there is no difference in performance between the road-going Viper, and the road-legal ACR: even with all the computer indulgence, the latter is much more composed than the former. I have no doubt over which one I'd take to carve the corners around the Yarra Valley festival.
The M4 GTS: the BMW coupè for the gentleman which isn't interested in being seen as distinguished, but rather as a blur.
In a wonderful example of convergent evolution the M4, like the Viper, got huge aerodynamic surfaces, a stripped interior, an engine made slightly more powerful through the use of more expensive materials and technically advanced solutions, and garish color accents - in this case, I am of course talking about the smatters of orange that adorn the interior, the new front lip, and the spoilers.
The result? A M4 that handles far more precisely than its "normal" brethen, and is also much less forgiving of mistakes and tomfoolery. It's almost like the limits of the car haven't changed all that much, but reaching them's been made way easier.
The original NSX was supposed to be a more civilized, more metropolitan counterpart to the various European mid-range supercars of its time. Introducing VTEC to the world of supercars and benefitting from an all-aluminum construction, it was supposed to make its main rivals, the Ferrari 328 and Porsche 911, look dated and pedestrian. Well, too bad that Ferrari introduced the 348, and Porsche updated the aging 930 in 1989, one year before the debut of the now-underpowered and not-all-that-futuristic-looking car.
The NSX still found a loyal following thanks to its stiff chassis (which was developed in part by no one less than Ayrton Senna), and eventually found motorsport success in the Japanese Gran Turismo Championship. But at the end of its fifteen years of life, it was not replaced with a similar car.
Well, until now. After a decade of teasing and aborted projects, the quintessential Japanese mid-engined sportscar is back. And this time Honda decided to take no chances and made a car which is, in many ways, years ahead of the competition: the 500-hp twin-turbo V6 is helped by three electric motors which provide a 73-hp boost, traction on all wheels and torque vectoring capabilities; the 9-speed DCT allows the hefty package to sprint from 0 to 100 in just 2.9 seconds. And its looks may have aged a bit since they were first seen four years ago, but the car still looks like a sci-fi masterpiece.
It took a while for the second-gen NSX to reach Forza, and it did so with an Acura badge: in-game, it makes good on its promises of a smoother, but still high-performing mid-engined supercar, effortlessly carving corners without any fuss despite its hefty weight. It didn't take much for me to fall in love with its gentle nature.
What did I tell you? The Kenmeri is back, and it's as beautiful as it was in Forza Motorsport 6. I was hoping for a set of overfenders like the one which we can fit to the Hakosuka, but I am happy with the car as it is now.